I recently wrote NewsStand, the company that makes the NewsStand Reader on which I read my weekly subscription of Flight International, a letter detailing why they need to change the way they do things. Here’s what I sent.
To whom it may concern,
I’m a subscriber to a weekly magazine that uses the NewsStand Reader software to distribute its digital edition. Thus far I have not been impressed with the experience. I don’t mind paying for magazine subscriptions - especially well written magazines like Flight International - but great publications like Flight are being let down by terrible software like your ‘Reader’. I’ve been a paper subscriber of Flight for many years and used to read it religiously every week but the electronic version promised to be more convenient so I made the switch about two years ago. I have noticed that with the digital version I now go weeks without reading Flight at all because I dread the awful user experience of the software. I keep hoping it will be updated and improved but sadly it has not and with new slate and tablet devices on the horizon I fear NewsStand Reader is becoming increasingly obsolete. The software could have delivered on the potential of digital magazine distribution if not for its shockingly poor design and implementation. As a result, I have put together a list of things that need to be addressed by the next release of Reader. These are high-level things that, in my opinion, should have been fixed a long time ago.
1) GUI: The graphical user interface of Reader is primitive and ugly. It is cumbersome, a pain to use and horrible to look at. Worst of all it detracts from the content that users view with it. Good GUI design would ensure that the interface is visually appealing and unobtrusive. A good Reader GUI would get out of the way when the user is viewing content. Content like magazines and newspapers should be displayed full-screen with no window ‘chrome’ around them whatsoever and the GUI should really only appear in certain circumstances on demand. It should be simple, visually appealing and provide smooth and elegant transitions. In order to do this properly however the software needs to be…
2) Touch-aware: Reader needs to recognize when a touch interface is available and it needs to exploit that built-in capability effectively. This is especially true with the bevy of new touch devices currently out and soon to be entering the market including convertible laptops (which I presently use) and slates. Not only does it need to be touch aware but it needs to be multi-touch aware meaning that the software should recognize multiple finger inputs especially ‘pinch-to-zoom’ and…
3)Gestures: The Reader software absolutely must include gesture support which enables easy, more natural navigation of content including simple swiping back and forth motions to turn pages and double-tapping to zoom in on specific articles. There are many ways to implement the above-mentioned changes, some of which will also address the final problem which is…
4) Platform independence: The Reader software should be platform agnostic. It should work on Macs and PCs and perhaps even some smartphones but especially tablets and slates. To do this it needs to be written in a platform independent environment like Adobe AIR or Microsoft Silverlight. A good example of software that already does this is Graphic.ly which is a great piece of software for buying and viewing graphic novels (comic books). It is visually appealing, easy to use and gets out of the way when the user is looking at content. Newsstand would do well to emulate and build upon the experience that software like Grahic.ly provides.
As it stands now I’d have to recommend that Flight International and others consider switching digital content distributors as they do not seem to be getting their money’s worth. As a consumer it seems to me that I’m getting ripped off by poorly realised, second-rate software and that the Newsstand Reader software developers are asleep at the wheel when it comes to updating their program and ensuring its continued relevancy. I’m curious to hear how NewsStand plans on making my digital content viewing experience as pleasant as it once was with paper-based magazines.
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